Bitcoin Forum

The poll is (almost) totally anonymous - no need to pretend. What would you do? Would your answer change in case of 0.9 or 9000 coins? If you returned the funds, would you expect a tip? Or would you take the tip upfront? Would you publicize your decision, whatever it may be?

I would expect a tip if it was troublesome to return. For example, we are discussing a "mistaken fee policy" for Eligius and I suggested that we have a 5 BTC recovery fee to deal with cleaning up the pool/reward/payout end of the equation (and a side effect of discouraging phony claims and neglegence).

I'd keep some for the fee and for good Samaritan tax :P  But I'd send the rest back to him.

How about a third option? Enlightened self interest :P
But seriously, I would look at whether the person needed it. If some corporation or rich did it, i'm not inclined to return it as I likely need it more than they do. If however it was just some dude who messed up, and actually needs the money, yeah I'd return it.

For everyone's benefit the Bitcoin community (here and abroad) would do well with more honesty. I would return the full amount of the coins which do not belong to me, my only request or stipulation would be a signed message from the address (or the largest contributing when many inputs spent) from the rightful owner so that I am sure it was a mistake, and the right person is receiving their money back. In the case the coins came from a public address or they can not prove control of the private keys, then I would probably be hesitant to send it back.

I would send the entire amount back, and not expect or require any compensation but I would always encourage rewarding peoples honesty.

Interesting point. Let's say it turns out money belonged to a CEO of a corporation you disliked (Monsanto if you are a typical guy) - would you just keep quiet, or would you make it public that you are keeping the coins because he is such an asshole?

This is reasonable.

I've decided what I would do: make it public that I've got the coins, and that I can't send them back to him as he is such an asshole. I send them to a random address from the blockchain, and wish him good luck with that next owner. His chances of getting the coins back eventually would be inversely proportional to the fraction of people considering him an asshole.

The answer you're looking for is "keeping the coins".
Your decision whether to make a charitable donation or not based on your evaluation of the sender, is unrelated.

I like that idea. Essentially you would openly express your negative bias towards the other party, and hopefully pass the responsibility of making an honest decision to an entirely random entity. I say hopefully, because you can't be 100% certain the owner of the address you select to receive the funds has not abandoned it, or lost the keys, or is a unmonitored cold storage account which might end up holding those coins for a long time. Any measures you take as precautions against these possibilities reduces the randomness of which address you select. I suppose you need to decide how far you can take that to be certain they go to someone who can resend the coins, without applying your bias to control the outcome.

More aptly, I prefer to judge the person before deciding if it is my place to teach them or to help them.
Say it was some vile organization such as Al Qaeda, catholic church, or Monsanto. I do not agree with their policies, in fact I would happily throw a monkey wrench in to their works, thus I would be quite happy to have found a large sum of money that they desired and I could withold. :3

Bad example, the Catholic Church is perfect.

I've sent money back when someone once overpaid me. I remained anon and could have taken it but that's just not cricket.

...cough...
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=133122.0

perfect example you mean :P But i'm not going to get in to a religious war, especially if you believe the catholic church is perfect XD

I'd send them back, but I have to mention that I would expect a reward.

In most cases I would send it back whole no question asked. If the person on the other end wants to send a tip, good for his karma.

If it takes more than a few minutes to resolve the problem (verifying the claim should be quick in most cases but not always) I'll ask for a reasonable refund fee. I usually bill clients between $100-$200/hour. For fellow Bitcoiners in a pinch I'll lower this to around $50/hour in BTC: I'm OK for a little free help but won't waste my time for hours for nothing.

If the network fees to send the coins back are disproportionate I'll subtract them (don't send me dust and expect me to refund it).

I found $600 in cash in a wallet in a parking lot.  I notified the business and left my number, took the wallet because I did not trust anyone, the guy came back looking for it and I returned it.  He gave me a $100.  Karma is everything.

Karma is nothing.  What you are describing is morality.

I would keep it, break it up and transfer it to myself at different addresses and then liquidate it at MTGox. I would never tell anyone. So would most of you. Funnily enough I would return a wallet if I found one with ID (cash included).

Why? I don't really view Bitcoin as currency and if someone makes a mistake sending coins it's just part of the game. Bitcoin is a get rich quick scheme that has gotten out of control. I'm sure wherever the real "Satoshi" is, he's sitting on a pile of coins and is slowly liquidating. He and anyone else who got in on the ground floor is making a fortune at the expense of more recent bitcoiners. If you look at the stats, the majority of coins are being held so there is always the possibility that everyone will cash out and the market will collapse. You can play the game if you like, just be aware of what's happening here. I just wish I had thought this whole thing up.

P.S. I do mine small scale for fun and I'm running a slight profit, if they really do ship out some reasonablly-priced ASICs I'll probably pick one up. I'm making a lot more money on my web design and programming business, something to think about.

I will keep all of them. I'm much poorer than 90% of people here.

Why do you think this is so?  Taking $1000 from somebody who makes $1000 a month and can't buy food if it isn't returned is of course an entirely different moral situation than taking that $1000 from somebody who makes $20000 a month and to whom it would be merely a minor inconvenience.

One time bitmit accidentally payed me twice for the same sale and i sent the money back =).

i dont see how your station in life is of any relevance to the question at hand. Right and wrong dont flip on their head simply because you are poor. Lets be clear im not saying you shouldnt keep the coins or anything, im just saying that there is no good reason why being poor or wealthy should effect the situation.

I would return it ofcourse.
In fact I already did it 2 times to the same dude/site.
The most recent was yesterday.
I charge 12% to return bitcoins received by mistake. <-- This is my incentive for the person/service to get their act together if they don't want me to keep 12% of their funds every time they send me coins by mistake.

I once found a wallet at a pub with apparently over £300 in. I didn't hesitate but gave the bar owner my phone number so the owner could contact me. While doing this the owner of the wallet phoned, and later I was happy to hand it to him. I got a £5 bottle of wine, the cheapest the pub had, for my trouble. My wife was vitriolic, I should have taken the money and left she said, but I would do exactly the same again even if no reward.

I would like to live in a society where I think there is a chance, even a small one of people doing the right thing, of me getting my money back if I am stupid enough to loose it. By doing the right thing myself, I can beleive in that, and that massively increases my pleasure in living, its as simple as that. I'd rather be the guy who returned the wallet than live with the fact that next time I loose something the person will probably just run off with it. Of course, thats probably the case and is not altered by me handing back the wallet, but I would prefer to believe that it isn't!

No, it is no different.

If I'm rich enough to get 90 coins effortlessly and they don't change much in my life, I will most likely send them back if the person asks me.

In my current situation the 90 coins will change everything. It will be turning point in life. Will never send them back.

After some thinking, I've decided that the most respectable answer to me is "it depends" - assuming you honestly and selflessly consider your own and the other party's position. This is more respectable then those of us who chose to have it "algorithmically" decided for us by some universal moral code. Deciding for yourself means you take responsibility and freedom to decide. Of course, the least respectable answer for me now is "it depends" by those who just say that as an excuse to keep the coins, no matter what.

It's too late to introduce "it depends" in this survey, but I'd change my "return the coins" vote into "it depends". Having said that, it's hard for me to think of any realistic examples where I'd decide to keep the coins. I mean, Monsanto or Madeleine Albright or The Vatican Bank or Trafigura are far from using and losing bitcoins, right? ;)  

Based on that logic, there's no reason you wouldn't murder someone for the 'right' amount of compensation. There is a possibility of indirectly causing someone's death by keeping found money.

I did sent back 69 coins to Inaba once.

Do you mind me asking where you live? $4000 is not a whole crap load of money to most Americans. It may give them a short live shopping spree but it wouldn't change their life...

Probably You are right. I'm absolute beginner with murders so probably I will leave these kinds of job to professionals. It is much like bomb defusing, you can only make mistake once.

And some trolls in past made unstable people to commit suicide over internet. Even no money was involved, they did it for fun. Not everyone will be comfortable with it but it is how life and internet works.Will he send back all coins when BFL scam will end?I did some bitcoin sells and purchases when the price was low. I exchanged my new desktop computer brought by bitcoins to high-end laptop for increased mobility. Sold the laptop to spend money on my girlfriend. Girlfriend rejected me. My 4 years old workhorse desktop died. My backup desktop computer was destroyed when the place it was kept caught fire and then was flooded by fireman. Now I'm without secure and powerful computer to work on and earn money. No adequate computer no Bitcoins for me.

That sounds more to me like you're a kid without a job and an exception of the world owes you. And that you are in the USA.

Yeah well...when I wrote that I asked myself for a second: Who is gonna be the first asshole to try to derail this into a BFL issue?

I sent those coins to Inaba@EMC, BFL has nothing to do with this.

MisteryMiner, you should try working on construction. You know, bricklayer. I bet you'll get a new laptop in no time.

Not a kid but still jobless. Economy here is seriously fucked up and the government in Orwellian style continue to say that crisis is over and things are improving, the unemployment levels are lowering and so on. In reality crisis have become deeper, nothing is improving at all and unemployment levels are reduced because after few months being unemployed the unemployed status is lost and these people dont show up in statistics. Also many have left the country for better life in other parts of EU and they also dont show up in statistics.

I understand that my current situation is my fault and gross mismanagement of computer backup plans.Lets see. 450$ per month for full time job in construction. All living expenses about 350$ per month now. How much time it will take to get 2000$ laptop?

And there is no jobs in construction right now. All builders have left for work in UK and Germany.